Teamsters Rally Forces to Battle U.S. Takeover : All-Out Media, Political Campaign Could Last 5 Years; Target Is Justice Department Lawsuit

The Teamsters Union has launched a political and public relations counteroffensive in an attempt to head off a possible Justice Department takeover of the 1.7-million-member union.

On Sunday and Monday, the union placed full-page ads in 15 newspapers around the country, including the New York Times and the Washington Post, asserting that a court-ordered trusteeship of the union would be no different than suppression of the Solidarity movement by the government in Poland.

Next Tuesday, several thousand Teamster leaders from all over the country will assemble at the Cincinnati Convention Center for a meeting designed to galvanize them into action against a possible Justice Department civil lawsuit seeking such a trusteeship.

“We want to make it clear to our members what’s at risk,” said Barry Feinstein, president of a large Teamster local in New York City, who is one of the coordinators of the event. “We’re talking about mobilizing 1.7 million people to do the traditional things--plus some not so traditional things--done by labor and civil rights groups to bring pressure on the government.”

‘Educational Purpose’

In June, the Los Angeles Times disclosed that the Justice Department was considering a suit seeking a court-appointed trusteeship under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act of 1970 to run the Teamsters. Justice Department sources told The Times that they believe the union is dominated by organized crime interests and that a trusteeship is necessary to clean it up.

John Climaco, Teamsters general counsel, said that “the meeting will have an educational purpose. We will be explaining to our people what civil RICO is and what power the government has to use it.” The Justice Department has previously used the statute to take over a scandal-ridden Teamsters local in New Jersey and has filed two other cases, seeking to put other local unions in trusteeship, but none of those remotely approaches the breadth of what may be done in this case, Climaco said.

Duke Zeller, the Teamsters director of communications, said that the union has invited all the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates to speak at the meeting. “Some presidential candidates” will appear, either in person or on videotape, he said, but he declined to say which ones. Zeller also said that officials of other labor unions will speak.

The Teamster campaign could last six months to five years, depending on what the government does, Zeller said. Feinstein said that Teamsters President Jackie Presser will present a detailed plan of action at the meeting.

Michael J. Riley, an international vice president of the union based in Los Angeles, said that Teamster leaders at Cincinnati will be asked to circulate petitions, write letters, talk to their congressmen and get their members involved in similar activities.

Board in Jeopardy

After disclosure that the Justice Department was considering seeking a trusteeship, the Teamsters executive board likened the action to that taken by communist and fascist regimes. In a formal statement, the union said that “organized crime has never, does not today and never will control the international union.”

Sources have told The Times that the Justice Department suit, which is unprecedented, would attempt to force the Teamsters’ 21-member executive board out of office, including President Jackie Presser. The union would be run by court-appointed trustees until it was determined that the union was free of criminal influence, the sources said.

Riley, in an interview here this week, asserted that such an action would be Draconian. “It’s a ridiculous idea to say people like myself on the union’s executive board who aren’t accused of anything will be kicked out for not getting rid of some Mafia guy somewhere,” he said.

“We are not without some bad guys,” he added. “But the government has more than enough tools to go after them, rather than throwing a blanket over the whole union--700 locals in all 50 states.”

A 1985 report of the President’s Commission on Organized Crime said that the relationship between the Teamsters and organized crime is “pervasive.” During the last five years, more than 100 local Teamster officials and consultants have been convicted or indicted for embezzlement, mail fraud, bribery, racketeering or defrauding union health and welfare plans, according to government statistics.

During a criminal trial in New York this year, Roy L. Williams, former president of the Teamsters, and other individuals testified that his election in 1981 and Presser’s first election in 1983 were controlled by New York Mafia leader Anthony (Fat Tony) Salerno through members of the Teamsters executive board.

Since June, organized labor opposition to the contemplated Justice Department action has grown steadily, even among union leaders who have been critical of the Teamsters.

Blasted Move

On Monday, John F. Henning, executive secretary of the California Labor Federation, blasted the proposed move in a speech at the annual Labor Day breakfast of the Catholic Institute here. “There’s never been anything like this in the United States or in any nation in the free world,” Henning asserted. He said that if a trusteeship were imposed, collective bargaining and dissent against employers would come under government control.

And he attacked Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III, who currently is the subject of an investigation by a court-appointed special prosecutor in New York. “Meese is applying the doctrine of collective guilt to the Teamsters International and if we applied that to Meese and the Department of Justice it would be a case for the United Nations,” Henning said.

Late last month, the AFL-CIO Executive Council passed a resolution decrying a possible trusteeship and said that it would fight such a move, while reaffirming that it supports “full and vigorous law enforcement aimed at the racketeers and sharpsters that seek to prey on our movement.” The resolution said that “government supervision is synonymous with the destruction of free trade unions, not with their salvation.”

The resolution did not mention the Teamsters or any other union by name. There has been speculation that similar trusteeship cases might be filed against three other unions (all affiliates of the AFL-CIO) that were accused of having mob ties by the President’s Organized Crime Commission--the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees union, the International Longshoremen’s Assn. and the Laborers’ International Union of North America. All three have denied having such ties.

In coming weeks, union opposition to trusteeships is expected to take a higher profile. A non-profit organization has been formed in Washington specifically to combat such government action.

Launched by Victor Kamber, a Washington public relations man who does a lot of work for unions, the group is called Americans Against Government Control of Unions. William Olwell, vice president of the United Food and Commercial Workers, has agreed to be the treasurer of the new group. And other union leaders are expected to endorse its activities soon, Kamber said.

Kamber has begun circulating a draft of a newspaper ad to be signed by labor leaders and other prominent citizens that would “unequivocally condemn labor racketeering or corruption in any form” and attack the idea of a trusteeship.

“What would be the difference between an American union under government trusteeship and the ‘official’ state-sanctioned unions of the Eastern Bloc?” the ad will ask. “In our view, the government is as constitutionally prohibited from taking control of a union as it would be in seizing a political party, a newspaper or a church because of transgressions by their leadership.”

Kamber said that the new organization had not consulted the Teamsters about the text of the ad nor received any money from the union.